Chair
Brent Hollrah
Brent graduated from Oklahoma State University in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and minors in Nuclear Engineering and Physics. In Fall of 2018, he joined Texas A&M as a graduate student to study nuclear thermal hydraulics. He has also spent three summers at Argonne National Lab working with researchers to study next-generation nuclear reactors. Brent graduated in December 2020 with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. He is continuing his education at Texas A&M by pursuing a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, focusing on the thermal hydraulic analysis of advanced nuclear reactors. In the Spring of 2019, Brent participated in the Texas Nuclear Engineering Student Delegation, and in the summer of 2020, Brent was a member of the National Nuclear Engineering Student Delegation.
Co-Vice Chairs
Amanda Bachmann
Amanda is a second-year Ph.D. student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on the nuclear fuel cycle and the transition to advanced reactors and is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Nuclear Energy University Program. She holds a B.S. and M.S. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she researched nonproliferation measurement techniques for various points in the nuclear fuel cycle. She has previously interned with Duke Energy in North Carolina and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She is an active member of the American Nuclear Society, currently serving as the Student Director, and U.S. Women in Nuclear, serving on the Communications Committee. Amanda enjoys reading about science history, kitting, and playing with her pet rabbit in her free time.
Kaylee Cunningham
Kaylee is a first-year Ph.D. student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studying nuclear engineering. Kaylee graduated with her bachelor’s degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Florida in May 2022. Her research is focused on computational nuclear fuel materials, specifically engineering-scale fuel modeling. She has entered with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Currently, Kaylee is working on a NASA-funded project focused on modeling fuel for nuclear thermal propulsions in MOOSE and BISON. She is a Nuclear Energy University Program Scholar and has contributed to the Versatile Test Reactor project. Kaylee enjoys competing in triathlons and spending time with her Phi Sigma Rho sisters in her free time.
Delegates
Rebecca Baker
Becca Baker is a current senior in industrial engineering at Penn State University. She is Co-President of the Penn State Chapter of Women in Nuclear and has held this position since 2021, and is an active member in PSU’s ANS chapter. She even helped her ANS chapter with their 2024 student conference bid as the Program Chair. She currently works with Constellation in their Spent Fuel group working with new fuel shipments for their sites. She has also worked with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in their Source Management and Protection Branch.
Though not a nuclear engineer, Becca is passionate about the nuclear industry and nuclear advocacy. She works frequently with the Penn State Radiation Science and Engineering Center to host outreach events for high school students in PA and Boy/Girl Scout Troops to obtain their Nuclear Science Merit Badge. In her free time, she likes working on race cars, machining and welding; bouldering, and painting!
Peter Brain
Peter completed his undergraduate studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2020, obtaining a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering and a minor in Economics. After being accepted into the B.S-Ph.D. program at RPI, Peter decided to continue his education at RPI and is currently a 2nd-year doctoral student in nuclear engineering and sciences. His research project focuses on updating and validating evaluated nuclear data files for natural lead isotopes for fast spectrum systems and is funded by DOE Nuclear Energy University Program.
Peter is an active member of RPI’s ANS Student Chapter and president of the Alpha Nu Sigma honor society on campus. Work experience focuses on fire protection and fire protection system maintenance. Outside academia, you can find Peter hiking or cooking in the mountains.
Julian Colvin
Julian Colvin is a senior nuclear engineering student at North Carolina State University. He is a Navy ROTC Midshipman and will commission as an officer in the Navy in May 2023. Interested in national security issues and domestic energy policy, Julian’s work has reached beyond the scope of engineering, with extensive experience in public policy research. Julian speaks French and has studied Arabic domestically and abroad on two federally-sponsored critical language scholarships.
Most recently, Julian was subcontracted to develop informational and educational messaging resources about advanced reactors for the national lab initiative Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN). Before his work for GAIN, he wrote opinion pieces for the Louisville-based Courier-Journal and did independent nuclear advocacy in his home state of Kentucky.
His hobbies include playing and coaching rugby, running, and practicing his language skills in French and Arabic.
Aaron Horwood
Aaron Horwood is a Nuclear Engineering Ph.D. student from the University of South Carolina and currently works with the Special Reactor Concept Group at Idaho National Lab. He has received an MS in Engineering Management from the Missouri University of Science and Technology and a BS in Nuclear Engineering from the United States Military Academy. Aaron spent 8 years as an active-duty Army Engineer Officer and served as a Commander of A/3-60th IN BN at Fort Jackson, Assistant Brigade Operations Officer for the 193rd IN BDE at Fort Jackson, Executive Officer of C/82nd EN BN, Engineer Support Platoon Leader A/82nd EN BN at Camp Buehring, Distribution Platoon leader for E/299th BSB at Fort Riley, and Maintenance Officer for the 82nd EN BN at Fort Riley. His areas of study include the use of mobile military reactors in support of future military operations and disaster relief, military construction, beyond design basis failure and shielding for small modular reactors, radiological debris field modeling and surveying, and TRISO fuel. He has been awarded an NRC fellowship, won the 2013 Directors Prize at the MIT Lincoln Lab Soldier Design Competition, and the 2016 Itchner Award.
Emma Houston
Emma Houston is a graduate student at the University of Tennessee studying nuclear engineering. She graduated from Tennessee with a B.S. in nuclear engineering in 2022. Her undergraduate research consisted of nuclear forensics and safeguard applications of neutrino detectors. She co-oped at Southern Nuclear Company at Vogtle 3 and 4 in mechanical systems engineering, reactor engineering, and cyber security and interned at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, working further on neutrino detectors for small modular reactor safeguards. She is an active member of the American Nuclear Society and Women in Nuclear. She enjoys cooking for friends and family, live music, and hiking in her free time.
Zachariah Jones
Madeline Lockhart
Madeline Lockhart is a third-year Ph.D. student and Nuclear Nonproliferation and International Safeguards (NNIS) fellow at North Carolina State University. She collaborates with Los Alamos National Laboratory on international safeguards, nonproliferation, and radiation detection research. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Physics from Texas Tech University in 2020 and serves on the Advisory Board for the College of Arts & Sciences.
Mitch Mika
Mitch graduated from the University of Florida in May 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in nuclear engineering. During his time as an undergrad, Mitch was active in UF’s American Nuclear Society chapter, eventually serving as president his senior year. Mitch participated in the combined Bachelor/Master’s degree program and is now a first-year Master’s student at the University of Florida, planning to finish his degree in May 2023. His grad research focuses on post-irradiation material analysis for U-Mo accident-tolerant fuel. He remains active in the UF ANS chapter, serving as Governor-at-Large.
Mitch has previously interned at Framatome, Los Alamos National Lab, and Brookhaven National Lab. After completing his Master’s degree, Mitch will pursue a career in reactor physics codes and methods development. In his free time, Mitch enjoys reading, rock climbing, BJJ, music, and spending time with his guinea pig, Moe.
Vincent Paglioni
Vincent is a fourth-year Ph.D. Candidate in Reliability Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. His research focuses on human reliability analysis for nuclear power plant operations, specifically investigating how to conceptualize and model dependent human actions. Vincent holds a B.S. in Nuclear and Radiological Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and an M.S. in Reliability Engineering from the University of Maryland. Before graduate school, Vincent worked for the Department of Defense writing maintenance and testing procedures for naval nuclear submarines. As an undergraduate, he interned with Southern Nuclear Operating Company and Sila Nanotechnologies. Vincent is an active member of the American Nuclear Society and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. His other research interests include nuclear reliability and safety, Bayesian methods, and the intersection of ethics and engineering. After graduating with his Ph.D., Vincent hopes to become a faculty member and continue researching nuclear safety and human reliability analysis. Outside of research, Vincent enjoys running, reading about nuclear science and history, and being outdoors.
Nataly Panczyk
Nataly Panczyk is a junior in Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering (NPRE) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) with a concentration in Power, Safety, and the Environment and a minor in Political Science. She works under Dr. Madicken Munk for the Advanced Reactors and Fuel Cycles (ARFC) research group on campus and previously worked under Dr. Kathryn Huff. Nataly worked for Idaho National Laboratory in the summer of 2021, researching microreactor-powered steel production. She spent the summer of 2022 working on nuclear waste modeling for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Outside of class and research, Nataly is Co-President of the Women in Nuclear (WIN) student section at UIUC. On the non-nuclear side, Nataly loves to cook, do yoga, and drink copious amounts of coffee.
Hannah Patenaude
As a UNLV Honors College graduate in chemistry and communication studies, Hannah Patenaude is pursuing a terminal degree in Radiochemistry as a Ph.D. student after graduating from UNLV with degrees in chemistry and communication studies.
Her dissertation electroanalytical techniques applied to U and Pu molten salt fuel systems using boron-doped diamond as a potential method for in situ reactor corrosion monitoring and redox control. She is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy University Program grant and as a NEUP Nuclear University Leadership Program Fellow.
Outside the lab, she aspires to actively contribute to the broader nuclear solution for global climate change and limited global energy access through community-focused policy, activism, and justice for people, the planet, and clean power production. She also researches the rhetoric of nuclear energy in the United States through the lens of environmental justice.
Maxwell VanLandschoot
Maxwell is a senior Economics major focusing on data science at Reed College in Portland, OR, where he is also an NRC-licensed nuclear reactor operator. His research focuses on risk perceptions of nuclear and other alternative energy technologies. He is the founding President of the Reed College Chapter of the American Nuclear Society and is actively collaborating with other ANS student chapters to help more students engage with nuclear science and policy advocacy.
Nuclear Engineering Student Delegation 